Punk-o-matic Pro

Welcome to the Punk-o-matic Pro development page.

POM Pro is the next installement in the Punk-o-matic series. It will take a step back from the gaming experience and a huge step toward the music creation experience, becoming much more like a simplified music software and less like a game.

Here you can learn what's planned for POM Pro and leave feedback at the bottom of the page.

Release Date

POM Pro is still very early in development so a release date is still impossible to estimate. That means don't ask when it's coming out.

Latest screenshot

Working on the full guitar neck for riff selection.

PLANNED Features

Lagless PlaybackUsing Flash CS5's new sound features, the playback in POM Pro will be lagless. No more little gaps between the riffs and riffs going out of sync.

Infinite Song LengthWith a dynamic music sheet, there will be no length limit and you will be able to make songs as long as you want.

More Precise Music SheetYou will be able to place your riffs at a half beat precision, which is 4 times more precise than Punk-o-matic 2. In POM2, you can place a riff every 2 beats, meaning that a box lasts 2 beats. In POM Pro, the boxes will be a half beat.

Riff Start OffsetThe riff start offset would allow you to start a special in the middle of it instead of always starting it at the beginning.

Zoom FeatureWith the better note precision and a possibly infinite amount of riffs in the game, the music sheet will not display riffs by letter or number but rather by name, color and octave or something like that. The zoom feature will allow to zoom in on a section to put in the riffs with more precision and see what's going on.

Tempo ControlYou will have control over the tempo to play your songs faster or slower and the possibility to have tempo changes throughout the song.This feature is still to be confirmed as it is complex to implement, considering the riff-based aspect of the game.

Volume ControlYou will be able to control the volume of each instrument tracks to create fade ins and fade outs for more unique songs.

Extended Drum and Drum KitsThe drum kit will include more cymbals, probably double bass drum, cowbell, etc. The plan is also to have the drum riffs be definitions of the beat and not the sounds of the beat. What I mean by that is that all the drum riffs will be like custom riffs made from the drum samples the game has. That would allow the player to swap drum kits to use the same riffs but with a different sound bank for the drum.

Online Riff RepositoryIn POM Pro, all the riffs will be online and not in the game. This means that the game will be very small and load very quickly and download the riffs as it needs them when previewing riffs, placing riffs on the time sheet and loading a song using the riffs. The game would also allow downloading low quality riffs for slow connections and higher quality riffs for faster connections.

Extendable Riff BankPOM Pro will be designed with extendability in mind. With the riffs being online, the game will load the list of available riffs from the server and download them when you use them. This will allow new riffs to be added on the server without actually modifying the game. The game will simply see the new riffs once you refresh your riff bank. From there, the sky is the limit, new solos, new pickings, new chords, new higher notes, acoustic riffs, etc.

SFX TrackLots of songs have sound effect in theme, waves, wind, gun shots, police sirens, church bells, etc. With an SFX track in POM Pro, people can add more personalit and uniqueness to their songs. Imagine a smooth intro with sounds of waves or wind, with a solo coming in, or a sweet bass section with a police siren. Or church bells during a heavy riff.

Instrument EffectsYou will be able to add effects such as reverbs, delays, EQs and others to your instrument tracks to create more unique songs and tones.This feature is still to be confirmed as programming audio effects is a complex undertaking.

Custom Riff MakerIn POM Pro, you will be able to make your own custom riffs using POM Pro's samples. That means you'll be able to create your custom drum beats, chord progressions, solos, etc. Basically, it will let you make a custom little snippet of music with one instrument and then let you use it on your music sheet, like you would with any other riff. This feature may also include the possibility of making custom song parts that you can reuse, multi-track custom riffs if you will.The scope of this feature is still to be defined. It might be only for drums but I believe it could be for everything. The precision for drum riffs might be greater than the precision for bass and guitar riffs though.

Song Copy/Cut/PasteIn POM Pro, you will have the ability to select part of a song and copy it into memory to paste it somewhere else in the song or to load another song and copy the part of song that is in memory into the newly loaded song. Transfering solos and data between songs will be much easier.

More Band CustomizationI have decided that I would keep the little band playing in POM Pro. The band will also have one more (possibly optional) member so you can do triple leads and bass or dual leads with a backing rhythm guitar and the bass. You will also be able to customize the band members in greater depth, choosing the gender, voice and lots of new custom parts, clothings, hair, etc.

Jam Room CustomizationYou will be able to customize the jam room to play in the little crappy place like in POM2 or choose to play on various stages with varous stage light setups.

Career/Story/Concert RemovalTaking a step back from the gaming experience, POM Pro will not have any career mode, money, concert gameplay or story progression. It will focus on music making and watching the band play the songs you make.

Streaming In-Game RadioTo limit the file size of the game, the game's soundtrack will also be online and extandable.

Chord, Octave and Single Note SelectionWhile POM2 gave you a selection of rhythm (fifth chords) and lead riffs (octaves), POM Pro will let you choose a wide variety of chords as well as octave and single note.

ANSWERS TO COMMENTS

Starting from POM2I am indeed starting from pom2 and will gradually bring it to the pom pro level changing how it works as I go.

Backward compatibilityI'll do my best to make it backward compatible with POM1 and POM2.

Loading/Exporting midi/guitar pro filesI could try to do that, seems like it would be possible, not sure. I'll add it to my todo list.

POM vs Highend programsPOM will never be a highend program but it'll get closer to that level of control.

Keyboard additionFor the millionth time, NO KEYBOARD.

More shirts/haircuts/etcLike the riffs, the customizable parts will be on the server so I can add more on demand.

Changing the band structureYou will be able to turn off some members completely so if you want a 2 members band, or 4 members, etc. You'll also be able to choose if you want 3 guitars, 2 bass, etc

Electric guitar and acoustic guitarThe acoustic guitar will be a "tone" in POM pro, that means you can change the tone of your guitarist anywhere in the song. So if you want an acoustic guitarist, no problem.

Story modePOM Pro focuses on composing music. If you wanna be playing your songs on a crazy stage, you can with the stage customization.

Keep POM.net Alive!

Hello POMers! In order to expand and maintain punk-o-matic.net, I've moved the site to a dedicated server. As dedicated servers are quite expensive (175$/month), donations, preferably monthly ones (which of course can be canceled later on), would be extremely appreciated even if it's just 1 or 2 dollars a month. If many people chip in with such small amounts, it will quickly become a significant contribution to help keep this site alive and growing!Thanks a lot for being part of the community!